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Why is Apple search so terrible on all their products?

15 points by c-slice ↗ HN
The Spotlight search on Mac is horrible and constantly needs to be reindexed. Search on iOS is equally as terrible and frequently doesn't find apps installed on my phone if I search for them by name. And the iOS App Store search consistently is underwhelming. Why?

13 comments

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johansch
They don't have server-side "DNA", unlike Google and Facebook. The executive management were not competent to hire competent server-side people, basically. They are getting there though...
c-slice
Really? But you don't need server side DNA to do a simple file system search.
27182818284
Not my experience at all.

I've never noticed my Spotlight indexing, except for when I've upgraded the OS. Items also come up very easily for me. I mostly use it to launch apps and it finds those for me with very few keystrokes. Maybe 1-2 gets me to the apps I use the most. For documents, it works well for me too, but not as good as the apps.

You can always try https://www.alfredapp.com/, but even in their blog they admit that with Yosemite kinda changed the game for them.

runjake
Instead of the Finder or the Dock, I use Spotlight heavily. I should probably move to Alfred, but I'm too cheap. I only notice it reindex after some upgrades and maybe once or twice a year otherwise.

I also use iOS search a lot and haven't run into the problems you describe. The iOS App Store? I'm on the same page as you. It's totally frustrating and doesn't work right.

balac
I wouldn't move to alfred for it's file search capabilities, in side by side tests spotlight is much better. Alfred does have many other uses though.
SyneRyder
Interesting, I would've recommended Alfred over Spotlight specifically for that purpose, if you're searching by filename. I just tried a test and Spotlight was initially unresponsive and then temporarily beach-balled while searching, whereas Alfred was instantaneous. (This is on El Capitan.)
dkonofalski
I'll chime in with another "this is not my experience at all".

I use Spotlight religiously for the very reason that it's lightning fast for me. I've never had it index anything for me where it interrupted me even with multiple HDDs plugged into the Mac. Most of the time it only indexes after OS upgrades and I usually do those at night when it's not business critical. Same with iOS. I've never had issues.

Have you tried manually removing the index and then re-enabling it?

rajacombinator
What you have to understand is that Apple is a company that is really bad at almost everything, except for the one or two products that Jobs or Ive are focusing on. (OK maybe their supply chain too, that is said to be Cook's strength.) But they are so good at those one or two things (the iPhone, basically), that people are willing to overlook all the bad things.
Spooky23
Spotlight is pretty awesome imo. I had problems on previous versions, but that was specific to a corrupt PDF. Stuff like spotlight comments enhances it further. I search something like 25k docs in various formats on my Mac in seconds.

Windows is far worse. They don't have a native PDF search facility (at least on Windows 7) and its sloooow.

iOS, I agree. It's gotten better, but the app search thing is bizarre -- especially since it works so well on Mac.

wmoser
I haven't had any problems with spotlight on Mac, in fact I've come to rely on it at work. For searching PDFs of wiring drawings, I can put in a cable tag and it will come back with the documents it found it in. I open them in preview and the search is already filled in and it takes me right to the specific sheet. I guess your use case is different but I wouldn't trade it for any other searches methods I've tried.

Edit: Sorry meant to reply to root.

billions
iOS apps are difficult to index because apps lack searchable metadata. Searching for "espn" or "fantasy" while looking for the "ESPN Fantasy Football" app will provide no results because the official name of the app is 'Football.' The app name (also disjoint from App Store name) is really the only out-of-the-box search indexable string
avinassh
> Search on iOS is equally as terrible and frequently doesn't find apps installed on my phone if I search for them by name.

I have never had this problem, not even once. I love the iOS spotlight search.

mcv
I have never been able to find anything useful with spotlight. I tried it in the past, but I ignore its existence now. I accept that my Mac doesn't have a search feature.